Yahoo Finance CMO Group (LON:CMO) Is Experiencing Growth In Returns On Capital
There are a few key trends to look for if we want to identify the next multi-bagger. Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. So when we looked at CMO Group (LON:CMO) and its trend of ROCE, we really liked what we saw.
Understanding Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)
If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. To calculate this metric for CMO Group, this is the formula:
Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) ÷ (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)
0.0056 = UK£118k ÷ (UK£42m - UK£20m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2021).
Thus, CMO Group has an ROCE of 0.6%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Online Retail industry average of 12%.
See our latest analysis for CMO Group
Above you can see how the current ROCE for CMO Group compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free report on analyst forecasts for the company.
So How Is CMO Group's ROCE Trending?
We're delighted to see that CMO Group is reaping rewards from its investments and is now generating some pre-tax profits. Shareholders would no doubt be pleased with this because the business was loss-making four years ago but is is now generating 0.6% on its capital. And unsurprisingly, like most companies trying to break into the black, CMO Group is utilizing 47% more capital than it was four years ago. This can indicate that there's plenty of opportunities to invest capital internally and at ever higher rates, both common traits of a multi-bagger.
For the record though, there was a noticeable increase in the company's current liabilities over the period, so we would attribute some of the ROCE growth to that. Essentially the business now has suppliers or short-term creditors funding about 49% of its operations, which isn't ideal. And with current liabilities at those levels, that's pretty high.
In Conclusion...
Overall, CMO Group gets a big tick from us thanks in most part to the fact that it is now profitable and is reinvesting in its business. However the stock is down a substantial 86% in the last year so there could be other areas of the business hurting its prospects. Regardless, we think the underlying fundamentals warrant this stock for further investigation.
CMO Group does come with some risks though, we found 2 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 1 of those can't be ignored...
While CMO Group may not currently earn the highest returns, we've compiled a list of companies that currently earn more than 25% return on equity. Check out this free list here.
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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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